Page 60 of Her Soul for a Crown
A cage of chickens squawked. The thump of a cleaver sounded. Her stomach churned. “That’s different.”
“Is it? What is your favored delicacy? Mine is the liver.”
Anula grimaced.
Bithul cleared his throat. “Perhaps we should stay on task. Blessed—my—Sohon, do you need that book to find the relic?”
His shoulders slumped. “No. The call is a feeling. I only wanted the story.”
They continued down the first street, Sohon trailing fingers along tables, touching wares, garnering more than one dirty look until the merchants saw the darkness on his face and recoiled.
Anula sighed. “Why do you care so much for one story? Don’t you have plenty stashed away from bargains?”
Sohon frowned. “Of course not. The memory books I make go directly to the offerers.”
“Then aren’t you tired of stories? You must have written over a thousand.”
“No,” Sohon said quietly. “I do not remember the ones I write.”
“At all?”
He shook his head.
“But isn’t that the point of you? To make a person’s story last for all time?”
“For others. It is called transference. I do not actually think the words; they flow through my hands.”
“How depressing.”
Sohon grunted. A hand lingered on yet another table, on the feathered pens and ink. “Stories are sacred. They hold deep truths. Yet not all stories are told, nor are they all remembered. Like a leaf on the wind, they disappear. And no one cares.”
A shiver swept up Anula’s spine. The stories of old hadn’t forgotten Sohon; at least that’s what she’d thought. Perhaps, though, they’d forgotten the whole truth. What would they forget about her? Auntie Nirma had once said that songs would be sung about her, if she did this right. And if she couldn’t do it, if she did it wrong…
“Anula?” A woman’s voice called out.
She turned to see a friendly face, framed in gray and accented with a purple sari. “Auntie Malika.”
The woman’s smile spread. “It’s good to see you. I haven’t seen anyone since…”
She trailed off, and they both glanced to the ground. Anula felt the moment Bithul pulled Sohon back, giving her space. Giving her emotions space. But that’s not why she had searched for an ally. Even though she questioned whether she could do this, she wasn’t about to give up or prove her own doubts right.
“Auntie,” she said, slipping off gold bangles. The woman’s eyes flicked to her dark mehendhi. She could see the question, why it was darker than normal, why it was still on when the wedding had been weeks ago, why another wedding wasn’t being held though the new raja had clearly kept her on as a wife. “I know it’s not as much as planned, but these are for you.”
Malika gaped. They’d fetch a few months’ worth of coin. “Thank you, Anula. I mean, my raejina.”
“No, don’t. Not yet. I haven’t completed Auntie Nirma’s plan. And to do that, I need your help. I need information.” Anula lowered her voice, sure that Sohon couldn’t hear, and pressed Malika’s hands in hers. “Do you know of a way to break a bargain with the Yakkas? Perhaps using a relic?”
“No, no, I cannot help.” She shook her head quickly, glancing nervously over her shoulder. “Nirma’s circle is broken. The women are either dead or imprisoned—or simply gone.”
“What?”
“Her nephew found the room and the books. He turned them over to the ministers. Then the Polonnaruwans struck, cutting off river access to Kekirawa. People are fleeing before the fields dry. There are too many enemies, Anula, my raejina consort. You cannot keep going.”
The hair on Anula’s arms rose. All Auntie Nirma had built, all she had dreamed, was gone? She blinked back tears, but when they cleared, she saw it, shimmering just beneath the hopeful veneer of the outer-city market: stalls filled with entire families, the eldest working hot oil or bundling thatch when they shouldn’t be laboring at all; babies cradled by young siblings; carts filled with the last remnants of a home; burned arms and hollowed cheeks. A people of loss.
Anula’s heart lurched for all the women Auntie Nirma had armed and for the kingdom she’d tried to save against exactly this: ministers who hungered for subservience and men who thirsted for power.
Doubts withered under Anula’s glare. She had no choice; justice must be served. “If I don’t keep going, how will anything change?”
